Saving energy and an optimum greenhouse climate go hand in hand

There was a time when saving energy was the enemy of an optimum growing climate. After all, it would lead to a humidity level that was too high, it decreased the pipe temperature and was often coupled with loss of light. In that respect, energy screens had a negative image.

However, such a time is now behind us. Today, our energy screens are being used in virtually all types of harvests and through research and practical experience, it’s been established that a screen can save a lot of energy as well as improve the growing climate, provided the right screen type is used and it is applied properly.

The introduction of the New Way of Growing has led to many new insights. Its pushed back the boundaries to a great extent, which has taught growers to use screens for many more hours, without any negative effects on the harvest.

The fact that more vegetable growers are increasingly investing in a second moveable energy screen is a rather new development. For many pepper growers this is already common but in the cultivation of eggplant and cucumber’s such practice is being used more and more. Supported in part by tests at the Improvement Centre or by groups of growers getting together, including, for example, at the Green Brothers eggplant company in Zevenbergen, NL, where a successful trial was done with a double layer moveable screen. Tomato growers are also following this with great interest and are seeing it as an alternative to one moveable screen and a fixed foil. This year tests at the Improvement Center showed that this led to an additional 3.5 m3 energy savings with the crop development being more than satisfying.

Svensson contributes to this by participating in tests and by continuously developing screens with maximum light transmission, optimum fold-out capacity and, last but not least, as much energy-saving as possible. Svensson’s LUXOUS screens, are clearly the result of this.